Category: parenting

I have woken up early on this Sunday. This, a rare occurence, yet something I have been intending for some time. I find that this is how life is for me. I pray, ask, set goals around something, yet the way it comes into my daily life is quiet and slow like this peaceful Sunday morning.

The gift of this time alone right now has been great. Through both yoga and meditation, I sat with a physical pain in my shoulder that I have whenever I get involved in a family business venture I had explored, as well as, the anxiety that rises up when I think about the fact that I have been called in to help. The pain is gone for now, as is the anxiety, for the perspective and realization I had this morning helped me to reframe what I was dealing with.

I realized that when I go back to help my family I am caught in the demanding, insistent need to worry. This stress and worry, coming from both my parents, whether real or simply imagined by me, had because my modus operandi for most of my life. It is like an addiction. You don’t want to feel it. You don’t seek to feel it. You talk about changing. You “give it your best try”. Yet at the end of the day, you fall back, awakened by the wild, rambunctious thoughts that destroy the true peace and many blessings that are around you.

My realization this morning was that this is not just a matter of will power. This is a matter of deep change, and altered old mental pathways. The truth is that I do not want, and now choose, to not use worry or stress to gain what I it give me- significance, importance and urgency. Worry had given me these things. It was the language used in my house to get attention. Just like a child who realizes bad behavior will finally get his parents to look at him, I see how we have all done that too in my family, just replace bad behavior with worry.

So what can be done? I have chosen to treat my “need” to worry like an addiction. “Hi, my name is Elizabeth. I am a worrier.”

I have chosen to avoid the situations were it will be, where it will taunt me and lure me over. I choose to make the hard decisions to avoid the people, places and things that have brought me to indulging in worry before. I choose now, instead, to steady my mind, and surrender to the Divine, whose stream of perfection wipes away any cause for concern. I choose to replace this ancient “need” of mine with new positive addictions, like gaining significance through giving generous support and help to others who need it, or contributing to the empowerment and inspiration of others through my words, actions, resources and love.

I realize this is an overhaul change, the type the ruffles feathers, and that the other addicts won’t understand, or will judge harshly. But I also realize that this is the lesser pain, despite the fact that these are the people I love most, not playing their game, closing the door on their methods, is the only way I can move forward into the peace, love and contentment I know are my Divine right.